Quotes
by TheLateNightStoryteller
Summary: A series of oneshots, each occurring during or around an episode of the second season, (in order, beginning with 2x01) beginning and ending with a quote. Each chapter will contain spoilers for the co-responding episode.
1. 2x01 This is not a Fantasy

_"It's not surprising, your mind has created this fantasy; a means of processing the trauma."_

_"This is not a fantasy."_

- Fringe, 3x01 _Olivia_

-o-o-o-

She sat beside him in the sitting room, watching an old Disney film one of the Koenig's had left behind. It baffled her how there were so many of them. Koenig's, not Disney films, she understood it was an old, very successful company. She understood it because Simmons did... or because Fitz did, she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure exactly what she was.

"What do you call 'em?" The mermaid was asking her fish friend who replied by wiggling his caudal fin. "Oh- feet."

"She reminds me of someone," she kidded lightly and Fitz tilted his head, raising his eyebrows at her in disapproval.

"Really Simmons?" He questioned. "You're making jokes about me now? Do you really think that's appropriate."

"I'm the one who has to be the sidekick fish," she pointed out and he smiled.

That's what she was. She was the one who made him smile. It was harder than it looked, but she thought she was doing a pretty a decent job, all things considered.

"What's the word-" the mermaid sang.

"Burn," they answered together before beaming at each other.

"There you go," she cheered. "You're much better at this than Ariel."

He chuckled at her. "You know, I don't even like this film that much. There's too much umm... too much...," he turned to her, expectant.

"Water," she finished.

"Yeah," he answered, eyes glazing over.

He wasn't smiling anymore and she could feel his frustration, his unhappiness, as if it were her own, which she supposed it actually was. She was him as much as she was Simmons, who she was a pretty close copy of. Close, but not exact.

Close because he knew her, her head and her heart and all the things in between, but not exact because she was still only a memory, an echo of the real thing. Even the best memories were only what was left behind once an experience was over.

So what did that make her? Faux Simmons?

She didn't like that, it made it sound as if she weren't real, which she wasn't, but she tried not to think about that and she wasn't sure if it was because it disturbed her or Fitz or both of them.

AltSimmons, she decided, alt being short for alternate. That sounded much better.

"Why are we watching it then?" She tried, nudging him with her elbow.

"What?" He asked, shaking himself and gazing back at her.

"If you don't like the film, then why are we watching it?" She repeated patiently.

"Because it's your favourite," he explained, as if it should be obvious.

"It's not really my favourite anymore," she replied.

"You should have told me that before we had to go through half of it," he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "Now we've been sitting here like idiots watching a film neither of us wants to see!"

"Fitz," she warned, because he was getting louder and someone might hear him and more than that she didn't want him to be upset.

He snatched the remote and slammed his thumb down on the stop button. "I need to get back to work," he muttered but he remained where he was, staring blankly ahead. "They need me to... to... they need me to..."

"Finish," she said quietly and he turned to her, eyes bright, before he nodded.

"It's OK," she soothed, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You just need to-"

"Be patient," they finished together. "I know," he answered, placing a hand over hers.

He smiled at her and she couldn't help but smile back. She loved that smile he had, the one just for her. In the back her mind she reasoned that it was probably because that was what she was programmed for, to enjoy his smile so that she'd actively search out ways to bring it back. The way a dog learned tricks so that it would receive a reward, usually food. On top of that, the smile wasn't really for her, but for the person whose place she was holding, the one who had left.

AltSimmons understood why the real Simmons was gone, why she had chosen to leave and she didn't blame her, wasn't angry. She'd had her reasons.

She wasn't sure how Fitz felt about it though, because he wasn't really acknowledging it to feel anything in the first place, and she wondered why she could think about it, even if he wasn't, if she were him.

Footsteps clapped down the hall, getting closer, and Skye appeared in the doorway, freezing when she spotted Fitz.

"Oh... hi...," she greeted, obviously she hadn't expected to run into him.

He waved at her. "Hi."

"Do you mind if I come in?" She asked hesitantly.

He stared at her for a moment, debating.

"Say you don't," AltSimmons advised. He could use a friend that wasn't imaginary for once.

"I don't," he repeated.

She smiled and entered, crossing the room to sit next to him, almost landing on top of AltSimmons.

Rude. Though she supposed it really wasn't Skye's fault, with her not actually being there and all...

"You're... um...," Fitz fretted but AltSimmons shook her head and moved to his other side. Skye couldn't know he was seeing things, then she'd look at him the way everyone did when he messed up, or when he said things that didn't make sense. She'd look at him like he wasn't him anymore and that hurt because he was him. He was still Fitz, he was just... struggling... a little. "How are you?" He finished awkwardly.

"Tired," she replied. "...you?"

"Good," AltSimmons answered.

"Good," he said.

It didn't seem like Skye believed him but she didn't comment. "What are you watching?" She wondered. "Oh, The Little Mermaid, I love that one."

"I'm not watching it anymore," he told her. "I don't like it, I was going to get... to get back to... to..." He squirmed uncomfortably and AltSimmons could tell he was struggling not to look to her for help.

"Back to work," she whispered, wondering why there was a need for subtlety when Skye couldn't hear her.

"Back to work," he repeated.

Skye was looking at him in that way, the way he didn't want her to and AltSimmons could feel him reacting to it, becoming upset.

"You know... you can take a break, if you want," Skye offered. "We can watch a different movie-"

"I can't take a break, we need cloaking," he snapped, rising to his feet. "I don't... don't... I don't _need _a break. I was only in here because Si-" He stopped himself abruptly, body icing over, the pity in Skye's eyes killing him because he knew that she knew what he was going to say.

"I need to go," he muttered, stalking out.

AltSimmons followed him closely, deeply concerned. Maybe real friends weren't such a good idea after all.

He stormed into the empty lab, yanking the chair roughly so that the wheels sped across the floor before he thumped down into it. There were tears in his eyes as he tried again to tweak the tiny mechanical parts, to make them disappear.

"Fitz..." she sighed, kneeling next to him. "It's OK." He ignored her. "Can you please listen," she insisted, reaching for the piece in his hand.

"Don't touch anything," he snapped, causing her to quickly draw it back.

'I can't touch anything,' she thought sadly. 'You really don't know, do you?'

He sighed, lip trembling as he placed down the part and turned to her, staring at her as if she were the only thing standing between him and total chaos. Which, maybe, she was.

'Don't do that,' she scolded herself. 'Don't fell sorry for him, that's what everyone else does. You need to do better than that, you're the only one who sees him, sees he's still in there.'

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

She shook her head. "I know how hard this is, how hard you've had to fight and how tired you are. But you're still here Fitz, you're not the person they see, you're the man you've always been, the one you know you are."

He smiled again, sunshine that could brighten away any gloom or fog, and she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"You're almost there," she told him. "Just hold on."

He placed a hand over hers. "I know."

She tried to convince herself that she wasn't lying to him, but she couldn't. He wasn't close, if anything he was getting further away, but she had to give him hope or he'd give up. The same way you'd tell someone swimming to shore in a storm that they were almost there, they were almost there. Even if they weren't, even if the waves were sending them backwards, out to sea, because they couldn't stop swimming. It wasn't an option, they would drown.

And Fitz couldn't drown because he was still in there. He knew it, she knew it, and she really hoped Simmons knew it too.

-o-o-o-

_"You know, a few years ago I was in a bad way, I couldn't pull myself out. Inside I knew I was somebody else, but there was only one other person who believed that... she saw the man I knew I was, but she was the only one. I mean sometimes you just gotta believe in what you can't see."_

- Fringe, 3x01_ Olivia_

/-/-/

* * *

><p>So, first chapter of this story (sorry if it was a little weird haha, they won't all be like this.)<p>

This chapter takes place after or during 2x01 of Agents of SHIELD. I know that at this point they don't need the cloaking anymore but I don't think Fitz knows that.

This is going to be a series of single stories (can I call them oneshots?), each taking place during or directly before or after an episode of the second season of Agents of SHIELD (so 22 in total, in order).  
>There will be a quote at the beginning and end of each chapter from a co-responding episode of one season of the series Fringe (a science fiction drama series that is awesome and I love). So for example, for this one, I could have used quotes from the first episode of season 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 of Fringe and then for the next one I will use quotes from the second episode of any season. The quotes will, as you might have guessed, go with the story.

The quotes here are both from the first episode of the third season of Fringe _Olivia_. The first one is from a conversation between Olivia and a psychiatrist who is trying to convince her she is the alternate version of herself (the show has multiple universes), known by our universe as Fauxlivia. (Hence, Faux Simmons). Fauxlivia is as real as Olivia is (both still being characters, haha) but Faux Simmons, of course, isn't real. However I thought it would be interesting to write the story from her perspective anyway.

The second quote is from the end of the episode _Olivia _and is said by Henry Higgins (a taxi driver Olivia sorta, kinda kidnaps a little) as an acknowledgement that he believes that Olivia is who she says she is (not Fauxlivia). He is talking about how his wife believed in him when no one else did and offering to do that for Olivia. I think Faux Simmons is sorta playing this role for Fitz but I don't know how healthy/ helpful a relationship with an hallucination can be.

The stories will probably mostly be Fitz and/or Simmons related, because I have a soft spot for them, but will likely feature and even revolve around the other characters as well because I love them all :D.

The idea for this series of stories came from Amandajbruce's Conversation Hearts, which is awesome and you have probably read already, haha.


	2. 2x02 Wake Up

_"Wake up! There's something you need to see."_

_"Well waking up isn't going to be a problem, but thank you for the gentle nudge."_

- Deep Epic Voice Broyles and Olivia Dunham, Queen of Sass. Fringe 1x02, The Same Old Story

o-o-o

Mack sat in his bunk late one night, awake, swiping through the files on old SHIELD inventions, through the folder labeled FitzSimmons.

He hadn't met Simmons and, honestly, he didn't understand every part of her contributions, but, from what he could comprehend, she seemed like a genius.

And so did Fitz.

The other engineer intrigued him. Mack could tell he was smart, that he was capable, but something was blocking him, kept him from seeing things, slowed him down. Which was sad, incredibly so, but it wouldn't help to turn bright eyed and treat him like a glass that might shatter, even if he understood why the others did.

There was a sudden knock at his door, short, impatient taps.

"Wake up," It was Fitz, sounding anxious but almost excited. "There's something you need to see."

Mack raised his eyebrows, curious, as he rose to open the door.

Fitz stood before him, bouncing slightly, a look of jumpy concentration in his eyes, as if he were trying to hold onto something that was slipping away.

"Well waking up isn't going to be a problem," Mack told him, attempting humour. "But thank you for the gentle nudge."

Fitz's mouth twitched, a smile maybe? Then he glanced beside him, briefly, but long enough to let Mack know he thought something was there.

Mack wondered if he should bring it up, the way he'd brought up Fitz's ramblings to himself, but decided against it. If he wanted to talk about what he was seeing, he would. Instead he asked another question.

"What did you want to show me?"

Fitz squirmed again. "It's, ... um... it's a...," he rubbed the bridge of his nose, frustrated, and then shook his head. "Just come see."

Curiosity captured, he followed Fitz down to the lab, tempted by the possibility of delving further into the man's mind. It had been worth it the first time.

There were papers scattered across the desk, taped to the walls, making his section of the room look like a scene from a detective movie, one where the protagonist visually pieces together evidence to solve a crime.

This wasn't evidence though, it was the same files he'd been looking at himself, from the FitzSimmons folder, along with new information, stuff he'd never seen before.

Beside a few of the papers were the team's mission notes, or post-its with words scribbled messily across them, underlined, sometimes with several dark question marks trailing them. A few had been crossed out and a bin filled with the square yellow paper told Mac that many more had been discarded.

He noticed a few pages on the cloaking device, away from the rest, haphazardly taped up in a corner as if Fitz hadn't wanted to put them up at all but had been at least somewhat convinced by someone that it would be a good idea.

"What is all this?" He asked, already midway to his own conclusion but wanting to hear from Fitz exactly what he was looking at.

Fitz frowned, narrowing his eyes in concentration. "It's... um.. can't you see?" He inquired, surprised, holding up his hands to gesture towards the chaos around him.

"It looks like you've been going through your old projects," Mack told him slowly, carefully gauging his reaction to see if he'd guessed correctly.

Fitz nodded but it seemed like he wanted more and he waved his arms as if trying to draw the words out of Mack.

He stared again, at the notes. It seemed as if he were-

"I'm... linking them," Fitz informed him, seeming pleased that he'd found the word. "Linking old projects with... um... with new...," he glanced expectantly at him.

"I'm not in your head," Mack replied, crossing his arms and shrugging. "But if I had to take a guess, I'd say you were linking your old projects with our current problems. Maybe cataloging them too, for future reference. Am I right?"

Fitz nodded quickly, smiling slightly.

Huh. He might be onto something with that. It had been what had saved them on their previous mission.

"Have you made any progress?"

A real smile now. "Yes." He motioned for him to come see a large cluster of post-it notes surrounding the specs for an older invention.

"That could actually work," Mack agreed, impressed. "Have you told Coulson?"

Fitz didn't respond to that, instead he led him over to another batch and then another, each solving a problem, usually a tiny one, but definitely helpful, especially when they were brought together.

A handful of post-its surrounded new ideas, ideas that came only from Fitz, but most of those weren't even close to solutions, scattered thoughts jumbled together, though it looked as if a few were turning into something and one might have been halfway completed. A minor thing, minute, but, once again, helpful all the same.

"How long have you been working on this? Have you been here all night?" Mack wondered, noticing dark circles under his eyes. He didn't look too bad though, he seemed... excited.

"I think so," Fitz answered, unconcerned by the time. "Come see this one over here."

They were down there for over an hour, time ticking away quickly for both of them because they were wrapped up in the new possibilities unfolding before them.

It wasn't a magical solution, it was barely a speck off the mess they needed to clean up, but Mack had heard a proverb once that a man who wants to move a mountain begins by carrying away small stones and maybe this was the beginning of something.

After a while, Mack left briefly to grab a bag of Red Vines from the kitchen storage, offering one to Fitz as they sat at the desk, taking a break.

He hesitated, tilting his head at the offering, before accepting it.

"Thanks," he said.

Mack smiled. "You know, I've always liked the swirl on these things," he mused, twirling his own vine around to watch it spin. "It looks like it never ends."

Fitz paused, mid-chew, and raised his eyebrows at him as if he were being weird.

Mack chuckled. "You don't see it?"

He frowned, examining his own, half eaten candy.

"Well you won't find it on the broken one," he let him know, fishing out a fresh one and handing it over.

Fitz lifted the long red string, following the curve of the wound together pieces.

"I guess," he conceded, not entirely convinced.

"Maybe it's just in my head," Mack laughed.

Fitz smiled at him. "Maybe," he agreed, narrowing his eyes at his food, as if trying to puzzle out what Mack had been describing.

"You were one of those genius kids who grew up too fast weren't you?" Mack asked, amused. "When was it you lost your imagination?" It was a joke, Mack knew Fitz had an imagination, that he was incredibly creative and resourceful.

"I can _imagine_ that the spirals never end," Fitz protested, a glint in his eyes, and Mack realized he was teasing him.

He barked out another deep laugh. It felt good, having someone to talk to. Mack hadn't been nearly as isolated as Fitz had been but he had been craving companionship and it seemed that he'd found that in the other engineer. Fitz seemed to like him, trust him even and that felt good too.

Mack took another bite of his Red Vine, breaking the never-ending spiral and thinking contentedly that he'd just made himself a friend.

o-o-o

_"When was it you lost your imagination?"_

-Walter Bishop. Fringe 1x02, The Same Old Story

/-/-/

* * *

><p>Yay, chapter two. What a great episode :D and that promo :O, so excited for next week and it's still Tuesday XD.<p>

The Red Vines at the end are a reference to Walter Bishop from Fringe (who loves them) and Phillip Broyles who accidentally gets high in Walter's lab one time and talks about the never ending spirals.

The quotes are from 1x02, The Same Old Story and the first one is Broyles 'waking up' an already working a Olivia, while the second is Walter questioning his son Peter's lack of imagination. (What do you mean you think getting an image from a dead woman's eye is impossible Peter?)

I wonder what the name for Fitz and Mack is going to be. I like the suggested TurboMack. :D.

The quote about stones and mountains is a confucious quote.

Looks like the next chapter will be about Simmons, hopefully. :D.

Oh yeah I had spelled it Mac but have seen Mack spellled with a K too, and we have no idea how he spells his nickname but if you look up MacK with a K you get the agent From The Asset who drove the giant truck and without the K you get this Mac so I dropped the K originally but everyone seems to spell it with a K at the end, even TV guide. com so I'll give him a K anyway.


	3. 2x03 I Wanted to be a Brontosaurus

_"I pretty much knew this was what I wanted do by the time I was nine."_

_"When I was nine I think I wanted to be a brontosaurus."_

- Olivia Dunham and Peter Bishop. Fringe 1x03, The Ghost Network.

o-o-o

Simmons looked over the tissue samples she'd been given, another gifted, one who could spin like a top at breathtaking speeds. She'd read the file this time, over her supervisor's shoulder. His name was David Cannon, but she tried not to think about that. She tried not to see his face, picture Donnie under their control, wonder if David was too.

Blocking it out. That was easier said than done. She'd seen her friends the other day, seen Skye kill someone to protect them when Simmons herself couldn't.

Skye, smiling, sarcastic Skye. She had never killed anyone before, as far as Simmons knew, and Donnie hadn't deserved to die, he'd been under Hydra's control which was, at least in part, Simmons' own fault.

How many more horrible things would she need to do to keep her cover?

She bit her lip, reining in her fear and unhappiness as another scientist, a woman in a black lab coat (why on earth were their lab coats black? Lab coats were white for a reason, but maybe Hydra was too busy screaming 'I'm evil' to notice) sat down next to her and Simmons remembered Coulson's advice.

Make friends, create connections, move up.

"Hello," she chirped, turning up the sunshine to UV warning levels. "I don't believe we've met, my name is Jemma Simmons." She held out her hand. "And you are?"

"Olivia Dunham," the woman smiled, taking it and giving it a firm shake.

_'Olivia Dunham, or Olivia Brainwashed Dunham?'_ Simmons wondered, missing her old team's easy humour. Who would have said that? Skye, Coulson... Fitz perhaps...?

"How are you liking it here?" Olivia asked, interrupting her thoughts.

_'Stop it,'_ she scolded herself. '_Missing them isn't going to help them.'_

"It's... interesting," she told her honestly. '_And terrifying in a secret evil corporation bent on turning everyone into zombies sort of way.'_ There was Skye, in her head, she really needed to stop. "I'm able to do my own work, unrestrained," she told Olivia, "and I'm making great progress."

"So when did you know this was it for you?" Olivia asked raising her arms and gesturing towards the lab. "When did you figure out this was what you wanted to be?"

"I pretty much knew this was what I wanted to do by the time I was nine," Simmons answered, talking about becoming a scientist, hoping Olivia wasn't asking her about her reasons for joining Hydra.

"When I was nine I think I wanted to be a brontosaurus," Olivia chuckled. "I wasn't always so smart," she tapped her head with her fist, laughing.

Simmons smiled, truly amused.

"You know-" she began.

"Yeah, I know, the brontosaurus isn't a real dinosaur," Olivia finished, grinning. She shrugged "I grew up, I learned a few things. I'm not the same person anymore."

_'Me neither_,' Simmons thought grimly. "So... would you be interested in going for lunch?" She offered, smiling again. This wasn't so difficult, she almost wanted to go out for lunch with Olivia. She was lonely, she could use someone to talk to even if they could never be a real friend. "I hear Salty's is... salty."

Olivia raised her eyebrows. "I actually like Salty's, don't let the name fool you," she mused. "The food is fine. Did you want to leave in, say, an hour?" She asked, checking her watch.

"Sounds great," Simmons answered, maybe a little too enthusiastically.

Olivia chuckled at her, at least finding her funny rather than strange, and returned to work.

o-o-o

Salty's went well. Simmons ordered the fish and Olivia tried something called a Tornado Potato (which looked even more unhealthy than her deep fried cod, like crisps covered thickly in cheese).

"Mr. Turgeon's a little fidgety isn't he," Simmons commented lightly, munching on a chip.

"Well, if you get in trouble at a normal job, you get fired. If you get in trouble here, you get knocked off," Olivia reasoned, slicing a finger across her throat before chuckling nervously. "I think he's just a little stressed out by that. Not you though," she added, seeming impressed. "You were cool as cucumber when those guards took you up. What was that about anyway?"

Simmons frowned, not really wanting to talk about it.

Olivia chortled. "Need to know, right." She rolled her eyes. "Sometimes I feel like I'm working for SHIELD, all this compartmentalization. Except Hydra is a step ahead of them," she went on between bites of her meal. "We're doing stuff those dumb SHIELD scientists don't have the authorization to do, so there's that. What is with them? Are they afraid of progress? Or are they just too broken now that Hydra kicked their butt to do anything interesting?"

_'The answer is C, all of the above,'_ Simmons thought, channeling Fitz and biting down words in defense of her organization, an organization her friend was in charge of. Hydra hadn't kicked their butts... they hadn't won. Simmons herself, infiltrating their ranks, was proof of that.

She couldn't bring herself to be too smug about it though, it was far too terrifying.

"Yeah, those... backwards... um..." she nervously fumbled for an insult. "Butts."

"I guess we really shouldn't be talking about this so publicly," Olivia pointed out, glancing around and thankfully misinterpreting the source of Simmons' unease. "Let's talk about something else. What do you do for fun?"

Simmons shrugged. "I don't really have much free time," she admitted.

"Yeah but you must have _some,"_ Olivia insisted. "Lemme guess," she narrowed her eyes, leaning back and taking Simmons in. "You like Karaoke."

"I do," Simmons answered, surprised. "How did you-"

"I heard you talking to Mr. Turgeon before the goon-squad took you up," Olivia laughed. "Do you like him or something? It almost seemed as if you were flirting."

"No, not at all," Simmons blushed. "I mean... he's nice enough... I wouldn't mind being friends... but... he's not really my type."

"Mine either," Olivia agreed. "He's cute and he's actually pretty nice when he isn't busy, but he's kinda jumpy. Besides, you shouldn't go having feelings for your co-workers," she leaned in towards Simmons as if she were saying something important. "That's advice from experience, I've been burned bad by someone I worked with. I made the mistake of confessing my feelings for them in a moment of weakness and after that things were weird for a long time."

"I'm not interested in anyone we work with," Simmons assured her.

She had little energy left to nurse a crush while keeping up her cover. She was too busy looking over her shoulder, fearing she'd be caught. And besides, her heart wasn't with Hydra.

Olivia took a swig of her soda. "Good, 'cause that's just heart ache waiting to happen."

_'My heart's already aching,'_ Simmons thought. "Thanks for the advice," she smiled.

"Hey, we gotta look out for each other right?" Olivia replied, smiling back. "I mean the man upstairs isn't going to."

"No, he certainly isn't," Simmons agreed, thinking uneasily of her recent assignment on the ship.

o-o-o

Over the next few days, Simmons developed a budding friendship with the other scientist. Olivia seemed nice enough and Simmons was actually beginning to warm up to her, to look forward to their chats. She'd almost deluded herself into thinking she'd found an actual friend until a blunt reminder of where she was hit her in the face like a rotten orange filled with squiggling grubs.

"You're testing 4632 today," Mr. Turgeon told Olivia, handing her the file.

"Another gifted," Olivia grinned. "Cool, this should be interesting. What's up with you 4632?" She wondered, flipping through the pages on the person, likely held against their will, as if scanning a magazine. "Am I required to keep him alive?" She inquired and the detached way in which she said it, as if this man were an insect under a microscope, left a lump in Simmons' stomach.

She thought of Donnie, shot and sinking as he froze himself, dying because Hydra had turned him into a puppet, used him as if he were nothing more than a weapon. As if he hadn't been a frightened eighteen year old boy who'd dreamed of being a SHIELD scientist, much like herself, much like Fitz.

"That would probably be best," Mr. Turgeon answered, equally uncaring.

Simmons struggled not to let show how distressed she was, fought to go back to work with a blank expression.

She managed it but, rather than being proud of her accomplishment, she found herself feeling as if a piece of her had broken off.

o-o-o

That night Simmons returned home to what was once again an empty fridge in an empty room among several other empty rooms. For all the furniture, all the cheerful paintings on the wall, she'd never felt more as if she were surrounded by nothing. She'd never felt so completely alone.

She wanted Coulson back there, making her feel cared about as he prepared her dinner.

She wanted May, watching over her, making her feel safe from everything she'd seen.

She wanted Skye, giving her hope, reminding her of the bright side or how a rainbow was coming after the storm.

She wanted Trip with an easy smile and a joke to lighten the tension, the darkness.

She wanted Fitz, wanted his hand on her shoulder before he opened his arms and gave her a place where she could find shelter from the howling wind and cold that beat against her, freezing her limbs, her heart. Fitz was always warm even when his body wasn't. He would have thawed them, let her cry into his shoulder until she could face the icy gales again without turning to ice herself.

She wanted them, all of them, so badly it hurt and she sat on her bed, hugging her knees to her body and struggling not to cry because she needed to be the lie all the time. Even when Hydra wasn't watching she needed to fool herself into believing she was alright or she'd unravel.

She was icing over though, the way Donnie had after he'd plummeted off the edge of the ship, and she found herself thinking of Fitz, of that warmth, even if thinking of him was painful because things had become so complicated and because she didn't really know how he was or if he was angry with her or hurt.

She needed to hold onto his warmth so she took a quarter from her purse and thought instead of a time when they'd been happy.

Flipping the quarter over her knuckles, she remembered him teaching her how to do it. She remembered the way he'd effortlessly somersaulted the coin back and forth across his fingers, making it look easy, graceful.

She'd never been very good at it but she tried now, slowly flipping it over one clumsy finger, then the next, dropping it several times but picking it back up and trying again.

It was soothing, something to concentrate on while her mind stopped churning and the ice around her heart receded. Over and over, the quarter passed over the back of her fingers, over and over it fell and over and over she retrieved it to try again.

_'You need to feel it in your hand,'_ she heard him telling her. '_Even though your fingers are doing all the work- and no cheating with your thumb.'_

She smiled at the memory of his playful warning, of his smile when she'd finally done it the first time.

Her left hand became sore so she passed the coin to the other one. It was awkward and backwards at first, but she soon became used to it. She didn't want to stop because after a while she'd started to feel as if she wasn't so alone.

There were people out there who cared about her, who had her back even when she couldn't see them, who cooked her dinner because it mattered to them if she was eating right. Out there, there was someone who had, at least at some point, been ready to catch her anytime she fell, to hold her when she needed to cry.

There were people whom she loved and who loved her, out there somewhere, and they needed her to be strong for them, for everyone. And so she could be.

Even if she were by herself, in a strange, awful place, flipping a coin across her fingers and pretending she could hear her friend, telling her how.

o-o-o

_"Am I required to keep him alive?"_

_"That would probably be best."_

- Walter Bishop and Olivia Dunham. Fringe 1x03, The Ghost Network.

o-o-o

* * *

><p>Wow, that was an amazing episode. I loved it and I thought Simmons totally rocked (despite the fact that I wanted to have someone build a forcefield to put around so she'd be protected from pretty much everything around her, oh my goodness :O).<p>

The rotten orange is a reference to The House of the Scorpion in which Matt actually does throw a rotten orange at someone's face (that someone was shooting him with a pea shooter to be fair).

The Tornado potato is a dish served where I work. It actually looks delicious haha.

Olivia Dunham is named for the Olivia Dunham from Fringe but, of course, they aren't at all the same character.

David Cannon is an actual Marvel gifted who is friends with Donnie in the comics (at some point).

The coin trick is also from Fringe. In one Universe Peter's mom teaches it to him to pass the time when he's sick and in the other his dad does (of course, only one of these two Peters survives).

The first quote is Olivia talking to Peter about how she always knew she wanted to be an FBI agent (and then Peter with one of my favorite responses ever XD) and the second quote is Walter, pondering over how he is going to figure out how a man is predicting disastrous events. Walter is awesome... but he is a little scary sometimes.


	4. 2x04 I Know for a Fact That's Ridiculous

_"I know for a fact that that's ridiculous."_

Peter Bishop (Unofficial Master of Snark), Fringe 1x04 The Arrival

o-o-o

Fitz took another sip of his beer, shaking his head and laughing at Mack.

"I know for a fact that... that that's ridiculous," he chuckled. "Quinoa's isn't magic."

"Tell that to my ex," Mack grinned, leaning back in his seat. "I don't care what it does, living my life without bacon was a nightmare."

"Why'd you... why'd...," Fitz fumbled. He frowned, frustrated.

"Do it?" Mack guessed.

"Yeah," he answered, shaking it off.

He shrugged. "Well when you love someone, you do crazy things sometimes."

"Like ignore the fact that they're a hell-demon bent on turning everything they touch to burning agony," Hunter muttered, taking a gulp of beer.

"Nah, I think that's just you," Mack joked, receiving a half glare from his friend.

Fitz smiled, glad he'd agreed to staying with the pair of agents before him. It was nice, to have company for a change, _real_ company, and the lighthearted banter reminded him of an easier time, of better days.

"You volunteer to feed... uh... disgusting flies... to their small army of mutant spiders when they're... uh... when they're sick with the flu..." Fitz added with a grin.

Mack and Hunter stared, confused, at him for a moment before laughing again.

"I guess every love story's different," Mack mused. "Some end amicably."

"Some end with you missing a kidney," Hunter continued and Fitz was almost certain he was joking, _almost_.

"Some just end because the love is... um... because it's..um... unrequited," Fitz finished.

"Oh, do I know a story about unrequited love," Hunter told him, shaking his head in disapproval at the yet to be told tale.

"Oh not The Waving Girl again," Mack groaned. "Can we not?"

"Be fair Mack," Hunter objected, nodding his head at Fitz. "Not everyone here's heard the tale of The Waving Girl."

"Some people here have heard it too many times," Mack teased but Hunter ignored him.

"What do you say Fitz? Do you wanna hear your new friend Hunter fix up an old story?"

"Oh, it's the version with the alternate ending, that's much better," Mack commented sarcastically, once again ignored.

Fitz shifted his gaze back and forth between them, unsure. He'd liked the sound of Hunter calling him a friend, he knew he needed more of those, and Mack, for all his complaining, probably wouldn't begrudge Fitz a story. Besides, he was curious now.

He shrugged shyly. "Sure, if you want."

Hunter beamed at him and, though Mack rolled his eyes, he was smiling.

"Go ahead then," he conceded.

"According to the legend, there was once a young woman who fell in love with a sailor," he began, leaning forward and lowering his voice as if he were telling a secret. "He agreed to marry her when he returned from his next voyage but, for whatever reason, the sleazy git never came back."

"Maybe he died," Mack reasoned.

"Don't make excuses for him, he's a bloody liar," Hunter insisted.

"You sure you aren't a little bitter?" Mack teased, shaking as he chuckled at his friend.

"Shut up," Hunter shot back playfully (at least, Fitz thought he was being playful). "Who's telling the story? You or me?" Fitz chortled at them but froze when Hunter turned his gaze on him, then relaxed as the other agent smiled, amused. "Anyway," Hunter continued. "The no good, sleazy, lying git never came back and do you know what that young woman did?"

Fitz shook his head. "No."

"Yes," Mack answered, receiving a sour look from Hunter.

"She waited," he told him. "For forty years," he waved his hands incredulously. "She'd go down to the harbor every day, waving her towel at passing ships in hopes that the sailor might see her on his way in, but do you know what?" he leaned in closer, voice lowering his voice, and Fitz moved forward so he could hear. "He never did, she died an old lady with a long broken heart."

"That's... very sad," Fitz commented. The poor woman, losing her love forever. Maybe he really had been taken by the ocean or maybe he just had never loved her the way she loved him. Fitz wondered if it was better or worse that she never knew.

"It's tragic," Hunter agreed. "But the worst part," he shook his bottle, "the very worst part is that she wasted her life pining away over someone who was never going to love her, the worst part is that all she saw herself as was the woman who was in love with a sailor. She never realized she was more than that."

Fitz felt a pang in his chest at Hunter's choice of words but was careful not to let it show.

"Well... at least no one drowned at sea," Fitz joked, attempting to distract himself with humor. "They just had to live their life as a... a no good... lying git."

Hunter smiled. "Do you want to hear my ending?"

Fitz nodded.

"Well, one day when the woman was waving in ships, a sailor stopped to ask her what she was doing," he began. "And she told him 'I'm waiting for my lost love to come back.'" Hunter changed his voice, mimicking the woman and then again as the sailor responded. "'How long has he been gone?' the sailor asked her. 'Two years,' she replied and he shook his head. 'That wont do love, he's either dead or he's left for good.' 'But I love him,' she persisted. 'You need to love yourself,' the sailor told her."

"Did the new sailor fall in love with her?" Fitz wondered.

Hunter shook his head. "Nah, they weren't really each other's type, but they might have had some fun, if you know what I mean," he added winking.

"We know what you mean," Mack answered, laughing along with Fitz.

"And the woman took the sailor's advice and went on to live her life," Hunter went on. "Maybe she still went down to the harbor to wave that towel, but it wasn't for that sleazy liar," he told them. "It was so she could meet new people, from all over the world, who came to town."

"Was she happy?" Fitz asked.

"She did alright," Hunter answered. "She lived her life."

o-o-o

That night Fitz lay in his room, the lights on, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Hunter's story.

He'd lied, he hadn't moved on, not really. How could he? How could he let go of something so enormous in such a small fraction of time?

How could he stop loving Simmons?

'You don't really have to stop _loving_ her,' he reasoned. 'All you need to do is stop wanting her to press her soft, perfect lips against yours and tell you that you're more than that too.'

He hadn't fantasized about that more times than he could count, he hadn't.

(He had.)

'All you need to do is stop feeling like every moment she's gone the temperature drops ten degrees, that your heart is cracking because it's so cold. Just stop that.'

Easier thought than done.

He missed Simmons, whether she wanted to kiss him or not. He missed her voice, her smile, her brilliant ideas, he even missed the way she'd roll her eyes at him when she thought he was being ridiculous. He missed _her,_ all of her, and what they'd been together.

Maybe he was angry at her for leaving, hurt, confused, but he missed her and he loved her and he hoped that, wherever she was, she was safe and that someday they'd see each other again.

"You're thinking about her, aren't you?" Simmons asked and Fitz lifted his head to see her perched, in that same blue sweater, on the edge of his bed, staring down at him.

He didn't reply.

"Fitz you need to stop, you're only going to upset yourself," she warned.

"Coming from you, I'm not sure how to take that," he answered and she rolled her eyes at him.

"Do you think she misses me?" He asked feeling insane that he was asking his hallucination of Simmons questions about the real Simmons. How on earth would she know?

"I'm sure she does," she replied soothingly.

"Yeah, maybe," he muttered.

"She does," she insisted. "She cares about you. You were her best friend for around a decade, no one forgets something like that in a few months. You need to think about what Hunter said though," she pressed. "You're more than that too Fitz."

There she was, saying the thing, but it wasn't at all like in his daydreams, it didn't have the same meaning.

"There's lots of good things in the world," she let him know cheerfully, squeezing his leg. "You've made some new friends already," she sounded proud. "And you're getting better in the lab, so you still have science, and we can always get Coulson to sign off on a monkey for you, all we'd need to do was tell him it was new equipment, he never reads those forms anyway," she waved her hand dismissively.

"Can I name it Simmons?" Fitz wondered, seriously considering her- his-her... whatever, the suggestion.

"No, you cannot name it Simmons," she objected scoldingly.

He sighed.

"Live your life Fitz," she urged. "Be happy."

"But what if she never comes back?" He worried.

"Then at least you'll have lived your life," Simmons answered, patting his knee.

"A lifetime is a long time to go without something you love," Fitz said sadly.

"It's a long time to go being miserable too," Simmons told him.

She was right. He couldn't pine over Simmons forever, he needed to move on.

It wasn't going to happen overnight though.

"I did well today, didn't I?" He smiled, trying to take her advice, Hunter's advice, to be happy.

"You did," Simmons agreed, smiling back. "And you'll do well tomorrow too, and the next day and the day after that. You'll see, everything will get better, easier, you just need to keep going."

"I will," he promised sleepily, eyes closing.

"Go to sleep Fitz," she ordered, placing her hand on his shoulder. "Our team will need you rested for tomorrow."

Fitz rolled over, smiling as he pulled the blanket over himself, because, after what had happened that day, he believed her.

o-o-o

_"That's a long time to go without something you love."_

September (Rogue Observer), Fringe 1x04 The Arrival

/-/-/

* * *

><p>The Waving Girl is a legend from Savanah Georgia based off of a real woman named Florence Martus, the unofficial greeter of ships entering the Savanah Port. The legend of her falling in love with a sailor probably isn't true (and there are other legends surrounding her, including part of Hunter's 'alternate ending) but sailors were apperently fond of her and one even delivered a statue of her to the town, free of charge.<p>

The quotes are from 1x04, _The Arrival. _The first one is Peter being snarky with Walter after he announces one his crazy (but sometimes right) ideas. The second one is September commenting on Walter not having had a root beer float in 17 years.

Also I do not think Simmons is no good lying whatever at all. She's awesome and not to be compared to the man in the story. That was all about Fitz and the Waving Girl. Also I seriously hope Simmons is OK in the next episode  
>:O "Run Simmons, Run! Somebody do something!"<p>

Also I am ecstatic about the increasing return of funny Fitz :D. Those jokes! "It's expensive" XD.


	5. 2x05 Wait, You Mean That Pigeon Thing?

_Wait, you mean that pigeon thing?_

_-_Olivia what-have-I-gotten-myself-into Dunham, Fringe 1x05 _Power Hungry_

o-o-o

"How have you been?" She asked, hesitant, nervous, keeping her distance and looking like an animal caught in a trap, like she didn't want to be there.

She didn't have to be, surely she knew that? Surely no one had forced her in to talk to him, surely she'd come of her own free will.

Or out of guilt, or some misplaced sense of duty, a responsibility she felt she needed to fulfill. He hoped not, he wasn't a pet that needed her to come home and take care of him, pour his food or he'd starve.

He'd gotten by without her for this long, he could continue on alone, she could leave if his presence made her so uncomfortable. She could go.

He didn't want her to go though, he'd missed her, and he knew that not depending on someone and wanting them to stay were two very different things, or at least they could be.

So he didn't send her away, didn't turn his back to her. Instead he considered her question.

'How have you been?'

He didn't really want to talk about that, about his loneliness and confusion, about what he'd almost done not so long ago, lost in his rage and pain and what that almost had done to him. He didn't want to talk about the other Simmons, the one who'd said goodbye and disappeared, maybe forever. He didn't want to talk about how he was struggling to move on and how much that hurt.

"I finished the Bird Bell," he told her, deciding to focus on something positive, a small victory.

She opened her mouth but no words came out and she closed it again, eyes bright as she slowly shook her head.

"The Bird Bell," he repeated, frowning in confusion before he remembered that he'd named it after she'd left. It had been the other Simmons who'd helped him come up with the name. "The pulse... of of... uh... electromagnetic energy... designed to... to," she'd have normally jumped in a this point but she was still watching him with an expression not unlike one someone with a chicken bone stuck in their throat would have (at least, it was what Fitz imagined someone who had a chicken bone lodged in their throat would look like, based on the fact that it would probably be incredibly uncomfortable) so he continued on his own. "The pigeon thing," he pressed, she knew what it was, they'd started the project together.

"You mean... the device that emits a pulse of electromagnetic energy designed to intercept carrier pigeons?" she guessed tightly, her voice higher than it would be normally.

He nodded.

"Why were you-" she wondered.

"I just needed something I could finish," he explained. _'I needed to practice on something easy,'_ he added silently.

"Oh." She continued to stare at him, uncertain, averting her gaze for a moment before allowing it to drift back to him. "Have you done any testing yet?"

He shook his head.

"Would... would you like to?" She offered.

That took him by surprise, but he pushed it down, keeping his face neutral, trying not to show how much his answer was 'Yes, yes please let's go do that together.'

"Do _you_ want to?" he asked.

Her head bobbed up and down in a slow nod. "Yes."

The echo of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. "OK, good... um... I mean... I'll just go get the Bird Bell and then we can... we can go outside..."

"Just outside the hangar," she suggested.

"Yeah," he agreed, shuffling away to retrieve the finished machine.

o-o-o

Simmons felt as if a chicken bone had lodged itself in her throat. Not that she'd ever swallowed one before, though she could imagine the uncomfortable, sharp pain it would leave, obstructing her eosophagus and making it difficult to swallow.

It hurt, the way he looked at her, hung back like an animal frightened of a predator, asking her if she were real as if her being there were so impossible he needed to double check.

It hurt and she was tired and sore and on her last nerve, but she'd needed to see him.

She'd needed to know how he was, to take in the shape of his face again, the way he held himself, the sound of his voice, so she'd have a fresh memory of it, like a new photograph to keep in her head. And she'd missed him, so much, more than he probably knew, but she couldn't find the words to explain it to him in a way that he'd believe her.

He'd finished the device they'd started at Sci-Ops, right before they'd left to join the team, bringing it along but letting it sit, unfinished, because it hadn't yet become useful enough to demand completion.

But Fitz had completed it. Without her. It stung even though she was happy for him.

Everything hurt and her heart was aching, but she couldn't leave. She was drawn to him, yet repelled at the same time, and she wondered if it would work the way protons coming together to form a nucleus did. Wondered if, once she'd gotten close enough, the strong nuclear force would overtake the repulsion created between two positives and they'd bond.

The problem was she'd need to get very close for that to happen, closer than she thought she could come before he drew away, and she fumbled for a reason to stay, a reason to continue fighting against the forces pushing them apart so she could begin to make her way into the range of the forces pulling them together.

Her thoughts circled back to the device, finding a solution, a neutron to stick in between them so they could approach each other.

"Have you done any testing yet?" She asked.

o-o-o

Fitz prepared the device silently, not wanting to speak, to remind her of how he sometimes lost the words he needed, about how he was different now.

Skye said it sometimes, when she thought he couldn't hear her.

'He's different.' 'I don't know how to talk to him.'

Honestly, Fitz would have settled for ordinary, human words. It wasn't as if they were suddenly alien to each other, he was the same person, maybe not entirely, but in his core, where it mattered. And so was she.

No one believed that though and the only people who tried to understand him were the ones who hadn't seen him before to notice the illusionary change.

He didn't want Simmons tricked by the illusion too, so he wasn't saying anything, wasn't risking a fumble for a should-be-familiar word.

"That should do it," she chirped, her cheerfulness clearly false but appreciated nonetheless. "Now all we need to do is-"

He flicked the switch and the device hummed to life.

"-that." She finished, amused.

He smiled again, a small thing but growing louder than an echo, and rose to his feet, tilting his chin towards the sky.

It was beautiful, the large white moon turning the clouds to silver against the dark, star speckled black. He risked a sideways glance at Simmons to see her gazing up too, marveling at the moon and scanning the sky for pigeons.

"There may not be any near enough," she warned. "But... that wouldn't mean it doesn't work."

"I know," he answered, keeping his sentences short, simple.

Nothing happened for a while and Simmons moved to sit beside the device, still watching the sky.

Fitz remained standing, shivering slightly under his sweater and wondering if she were cold, if she'd want to go back inside.

"It's beautiful out here," she murmured.

He turned to see her sitting cross-legged, seemingly content to remain where she was.

"It is," he agreed, warmed by her presence.

As confusing as it was it was good to have her back, to have her nearby. It made him happy at the same time as it made him sad.

o-o-o

Simmons sat, enjoying the cool night air and the gorgeous moon that shone down on them, wishing he'd come sit beside her but not brave enough to ask him to. Besides, if he felt more comfortable standing she wasn't going to object.

It felt good to be home and safe and surrounded by people she was fond of, knew she could trust. Even the sight of Fitz, still and silent nearby, was a comfort despite the pain and confusion it brought along with it, despite the fact she was afraid of how broken they'd become.

He was still her Fitz, still the same person she knew she could trust with her life, wholley and completely, still the same kind, funny, clever man she'd grown to love, even if he appeared different on the outside sometimes.

He was still someone she knew, without an ounce of doubt, was on her side and that meant more than she ever thought it would. She hadn't realized how precious that was, how precious trust and love were, until she'd had to live without them.

Something small was flapping towards them, a tiny shadow moving between the stars.

"Fitz," she whispered.

"I see," he answered quietly.

The bird landed atop the machine, it's head swiveling wildly as if it were trying to figure out why it was there.

"Look," Fitz called in a hushed voice, pointing up to where a flock of birds was descending towards them.

"There are so many," she marveled. "The pulse must reach further than we thought."

They gathered, cooing and fluttering around the device, drawn to it like moths to a lamp.

"Hey, stop," Fitz objected when one perched on his head, feet tangling in his hair. "Get off you flight-gifted rat."

"We did call them here," she chuckled as he shooed it off.

"To the device, not my head," he grumbled, flatting down his hair. "I'm going to.. um... smell like pigeon for days. Whose idea was it to build this thing?"

"It was my idea to build it," she reminded him, unable to keep herself from giggling as another bird landed on his shoulder and Fitz stared it down, as if he could glare it off of him. "They really seem to like you."

"Then I guess I have you to thank for this," he muttered, shaking his shoulder and flinching as he received a feathery slap in the face from the startled creature before it took off.

"Yeah, that's me," Simmons grinned and his pout twitched into a smile which, to her, looked like home. "Maybe we should turn it off," she suggested.

"Probably," he agreed, moving forward to do so.

The humming stopped but the birds remained where they were.

"Er... fly," Fitz tried, herding a small section of the flock away and leaning down to shoo them with his hands. "Go, ascend."

They scurried away from him, and a few stretched their wings, however they remained grounded.

"Fitz they aren't dogs, no one's trained them," Simmons told him.

"Then what do we do?" He asked, pausing in his efforts and turning his attention to her.

She shrugged. "I'm sure if we leave them they'll fly away eventually, it isn't as if we've trapped them in a cage."

"So..."

"So we can go back inside now," she decided, a little disappointed. It had been nice to experiment together again, to have him smile at her, to laugh beside someone she cared about.

"OK," he complied softly, shoulders sagging slightly, and she was sure that he was just as unwilling as she was to end the night.

She was exhausted though and as a yawn passed out of her his expression changed to one of concern.

"You're probably worn out," he guessed. "You did just get back, you should sleep."

"So should you," she told him. "It's getting late."

He nodded and together they re-entered the Playground, taking the Bird Bell and leaving the cooing, flapping flock.

She walked him down to his room and they lingered in front of the door, both wanting to say something but neither knowing how to break the silence.

"I missed you," she said quietly at last.

He seemed surprised for a moment before his eyes softened.

"I missed you too Simmons," he answered, giving her a full smile. "See you tomorrow."

"Sleep well," she murmured as he opened his door.

"You too," he returned warmly, letting his gaze rest on her for another heartbeat before he closed the door between them.

Simmons' mind was churning, searching through her memories for something else they could do together, a reason to knock and invite him along with her again but her eyes were drooping shut and she thought they'd already stretched out their awkward, precious time together as far as it would go for the night, so she moved away from his room and went to find hers.

o-o-o

The next morning the pair were called into Coulson's office. He wanted to know why there was a flock of pigeons camping out in front of the hangar doors.

"I have you two to thank for this, don't I?" He sighed, shaking his head in disbelief at what he'd woken up to.

The pair exchanged a quick, amused glance before Simmons answered him.

"Yes sir, that'd be us."

o-o-o

_"I have you to thank for that, don't I?"_

_"Yeah, that's me."_

_- _Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham, Masters of Adorableness. Fringe 1x05, _Power Hungry_

/-/-/

* * *

><p>So, maybe a bit optimistic haha, but it could be a one-time pigeon-filled spree before the angst sets in right? I mean when a scene is cut off a the end, your imagination can go anywhere :P.<p>

The idea here is that pigeons (at least some kinds) can navigate using the earth's magnetic field and the device messes with the navigations system. The reason it works is: science-fiction XD.

Also how awesome was that episode? Man, I actually feel bad for Raina, and poor Simmons! She was so scared, but she was such a brave trooper and besides she had the Mockingjay- I mean Mockingbird- to rescue her. ("She's amazing :D").

Also Skye's reaction to Coulson telling her she was an alien was so great I had to put a reference in ;).

The quotes are both from 1x05 Power Hungry, which has one of my favourite plots (pigeons trained to track people who have been altered by evil scientists) and some great quotes aaaannndd a deleted scene with a sketchy pigeon dealer (because Peter's contacts only come in shady and sketchy).

The first quote is Olivia trying to understand when Walter explains they can use pigeons to find the victim (the guy kidnapped by evil scientists). And the second one is Peter and Olivia being all cute over how Olivia keeps dragging Peter into crazy situations. They are the endgame of the show, so maybe using the quote will be lucky? ;).

The stuff about neutrons and protons, how strong nucleur force keep protons together, even though they are two positive charges and should repel each other and how neutrons, with no charge, help them approach each other, is true.


	6. 2x06 And We Have Gooification

_"And we have gooification."_

_"Is that the scientific term?"_

- Walter Bishop, lover of science and gooification and Astrix, Apsrin Astral, Alex, Astro, Ester, Claire, _Astrid_ Farnsworth, Fringe 1x06,_ The Cure_

o-o-o

Simmons heard them laughing just as she was about to enter the lab and paused behind the door savouring the sound of it, the sound of Fitz happy, trying to ignore the sting brought on by the knowledge that she couldn't evoke that emotion from him anymore because she no longer knew how.

It was beautiful anyway and it brought a smile to her face despite her pain.

Slowly, she peeked around the corner, through the glass, to see that Fitz and Mack were testing out a new device. It was some sort of chamber, a glass dome with pipes and wires jutting out of it. Inside they'd placed a small, green fruit, which she couldn't identify from where she was. An avocado or a papaya perhaps?

She wondered if they'd built it together or if Fitz had done it on his own and called his new friend to show him what it did. She wondered if he'd thought about asking her to come too.

Another stinger poked into her chest, burning as if from a wasp or a bee, but she ignored it, focusing instead on the scene before her, forcing herself to see it as something good, because it was.

It was _fantastic_ that Fitz was enjoying himself. It was _wonderful_ that he was working on new things. It was a _good_ thing that he was moving on without her.

It was good...

Her eyes were hot and moist but she lingered anyway, as still and silent as she could be, watching them, letting out a low, watery chuckle that stemmed from genuine joy when the pair began laughing at a silly joke.

"And we have... um... gooification," Fitz announced after the fruit burst, sending red, pulped flesh splattering onto the small chamber's clear walls. A papaya then.

"Is that the scientific term?" Mack teased and they laughed again while Fitz opened the lid to scoop out a sample of the fruit goo.

He was smiling, excitedly tapping the keys of the keyboard, likely accessing some sort of blueprint or document about the device. Simmons hadn't seen him so content in a long time and she became transfixed with his easy grin, with the bounce in his step.

She watched them for another minute before her fear of being discovered and dampening their mood pulled her away from the door and caused her to drift back down the hall, to find another room to do her reading in.

She didn't really need the lab and Fitz certainly didn't need her.

Actually, it was the other way around.

o-o-o

Simmons was sitting at a small metal desk, hunched over a stack of documents, pages and pages of stolen information she needed to go through, when Skye entered the otherwise vacant room.

"You OK?" She asked, hovering over her shoulder and placing down a steaming mug. "Sorry," she added, as Simmons' eyes fell on the strongly smelling brown liquid. "I would have gotten you one too but I didn't know you'd be here. I thought you were going to work in the lab."

"I don't really need the lab," she told her quietly, turning back to her notes.

Something heavy was sitting on top of her lungs, making breathing laborious and painful. There were times when she was glad she was back with her team. Despite how different everything was, the place where they were resonated of safety, of home. Other times though she almost wished she could go back to fearing for her life every other day.

"Which brings me back to my first question," Skye pressed, tilting her head and searching her friend's face, concerned.

"Don't worry about me." Simmons smiled up at her, trying not let her voice squeak.

"Are you kidding me?" Skye laughed in disbelief, shaking her head. "I've been worrying about you for weeks now."

"Well you can safely stop worrying," Simmons chuckled, awkward, avoiding a straight answer. "About me at least... we aren't nearly out of the woods yet."

"You being back helps." Skye grinned encouragingly at her, lifting some of the weight that threatened to crush her chest.

"I'm glad it's helping someone," Simmons mumbled before she realized what she was saying.

She coughed and busily shuffled her papers around, attempting to act as if she hadn't spoken, as if her words hadn't meant anything.

Skye saw right through her, as if she were as transparent as the dome of Fitz's new project, the gooey carnage clearly visible.

"He's glad you're back," she insisted gently. "That you're OK."

Simmons swallowed, avoiding her gaze. "I know that."

"It's just going to take some time," she pressed but Simmons shook her head, vision blurring.

"I'd do anything for him," she whispered painfully. "_Anything_ to make this right." She sniffed, blinking to expel the tears which obstructed her view of her notes, squeezing them out so that a few fell onto the pages, splashing grey circles and smudging the ink. "But all I can do is nothing."

Skye knelt down so that their faces were level and lay a gentle hand on her arm.

"I don't understand," she said softly.

"Neither does he," Simmons murmured, cheeks wet.

The other agent's eyes grew bright and she bit her lip, momentarily at a loss for words.

"I'm going to get you a cup of tea," she finally decided. She scrunched her nose, determinedly optimistic. "Then I can help you go through this stuff you stole right from under Hydra's nose like some kind of super spy."

She rubbed Simmons' arm before squeezing it lightly, the gentle pressure providing a small drizzle of comfort to cool the flames burning her eyes and her throat. A long breath rattled out of her and she rubbed away the streaks her tears had left with the back of her free hand.

"Thank you."

Skye nodded, smiling kindly as she stood and walked around the desk, headed towards the door.

"And _I am_ a spy," Simmons called after her, some of her humour returning.

"What do you know?" Skye giggled, swiveling around to face her, a glint in her eyes. "So am I."

o-o-o

Simmons walked by the lab again the next morning, only to look, make sure he was alright and maybe, if she was lucky, catch a glimpse of that smile again.

Fitz was sleeping, a screwdriver loosely held in one hand, his cheek on the other, sprawled over metal and wires. He must have been working all through the night on whatever it was that rested only inches from his nose.

He'd probably be tired from staying up so late. She debated going in and waking him up, suggesting he go get some sleep in his bed, but she didn't think he'd listen to her suggestion and besides she was afraid of talking to him, of hurting him unintentionally. Somehow she'd become kryptonite to him, she weakened him where she'd once made him strong, stopped sentences she'd once finished, created misery where, once, she would have created joy.

However much she yearned to be beside him, she loved him too much to let herself poison him.

Still she ached for a way to show him he was still important to her, to prove she _hadn'_t given up on him and she found herself thinking of the tea Skye had brought for her. It was a warm comfort and even if it hadn't been made exactly the way she liked it, the gesture had made her feel cared for.

Counting on the early hour to keep him asleep, she scurried to the kitchen to prepare a mug, hoping he still took it the same way as he had before. She could ask Mack, if she ran into him, he might know and if it was different she'd change it. It was a small thing but she was willing to learn it, to adapt.

o-o-o

She hadn't met a soul on her way so she'd prepared his old favourite. Even if it wasn't what he prefered it would still be warm and ready for him when he woke up.

He was sleeping when she crept in, tiptoeing towards him and gently placing the mug on an empty patch of desk, where he would see it, but out of his reach so he wouldn't knock it over accidentally.

The gadget he was working on caught her eye and she recognized a few of the components. It was about halfway finished by the looks of it and coming along alright, if not as quickly as it once would have. It wasn't perfect, but he'd had a few impressively creative ideas which he'd scribbled out on a notepad beside it.

She glanced at him, smiling proudly, then, as quietly as she could, tore a paper from the pad and picked up the pen. On the paper, in neat, printed letters, she wrote 'this looks wonderful' before slipping it under the mug.

For a moment she debated the note, worried it would come off as patronizing or insincere, worried it was a drop of her poison, but he stirred before she could come to a decision and she rushed out of the room so she wouldn't be spotted.

Around the corner she paused, back against the wall, wondering if she could risk a quick peek inside to see if he actually had woken up. After a brief debate with herself her weaker half won over and she cautiously edged towards the window, looking in with one eye to see he was indeed awake and reading her note, mug in hand.

He seemed confused at first and her breath caught in her chest before she saw him smile and take a sip of the tea. He read the paper over again then folded it up into a square which he tucked into the pocket of his sweater. His smile remained as he resumed working.

o-o-o

From then on, she made a habit of leaving a hot mug of tea for him in the lab. She'd asked Mack if he knew the way Fitz liked it now but he'd shrugged, unsure.

"I don't really ask him about things like that," he told her. "Honestly I never really thought about it, I offer him coffee sometimes but no one likes the way I make it." He chuckled. "I like it so strong the spoon stands up."

He hadn't questioned why she hadn't asked Fitz directly.

So she kept on making it the old way, mixing in the familiar ingredients in the familiar proportions, always pairing the beverage with a note, usually only a few words.

'Good Morning'

'This looks interesting'

'I can't BELIEVE what they are saying about us on the news'

':)'

'Sorry, we ran out of the good kind'

She kept it simple, cheerful but not intimate, seeking out Mack for assurances, to be sure nothing she'd written had hurt her friend and each time she was told the note had made him smile and the mug had been drained. (Fitz gone on a twenty minute, partially incoherent, rant about exactly what they'd been saying about SHIELD on the news after the third one, but Mack had suspected that had been because he too had opinions on the media's coverage of their organization, not because the note had upset him.)

Life went on and Simmons became accustomed to the way things were, developed a routine. She diligently made her way through the data from Hydra, ran any tests she needed to, thoroughly and determinedly played her part in any case the team had hurled at them.

She had Skye and Trip for company and Fitz had Mack (and sometimes Hunter) however, though they were usually polite with each other, the two of them had few interactions beyond the notes and the times they were required to work side by side.

Day by day it became easier to bear seeing her old friend, the person who she'd once been closer with than anyone in the world, living his own life on the other side of a canyon. Week by week it became easier to accept that the world he lived in had evolved, separated from her own the way ecosystems were when tectonic plates shifted to break apart continents, placing oceans in between them, so that it was foreign to her now.

The ache remained though. There was a hole where he'd once been and it never did fill up. Instead it was surrounded on all sides by her new world like a scar left over, not from an impact, but from something important having been removed, a vital part of the land which had been taken away, leaving it barren and empty.

She wasn't sure anything would ever grow there again but she was learning how to live with the pain of it.

o-o-o

One morning, watching the news, she was hit with a new kind of pain, one she should have been expecting but had put off preparing for because she hadn't wanted to believe it was a serious possibility.

There had been another attack, by Hydra, on a mini-mall somewhere in Northern Michigan. The weapon used had been biological in nature, the gruesome symptoms suffered by the innocent victims grotesquely familiar.

Simmons had worked on that weapon, she'd helped Hydra build it, and now it was being used to bring pain and death. People had died because of her.

Stomach heaving, she fled the room, ignoring Skye worriedly calling after her, and barely made it to the toilet before her breakfast came back up.

When there was nothing left inside of her she fell back against the door of the stall, forehead beaded with sweat as the horrific images flashed before her mind's eye and her guilt pulsed painfully down to her bones as if she were being electrocuted over and over again.

Her breaths were short and quick between her whimpers and as tightly as she hugged her knees to her chest she couldn't stop herself from shaking.

The door creaked open, followed by soft footsteps.

"Simmons?" Skye called quietly.

"I-I." Another series of sobs spasmed through her. "D-don't... ple-please... please j-just." She was trembling, unable to get the words out. "Go... g-go... please j-just go."

She heard her friend sigh heavily. "OK," she complied gently. "I'll be at my desk if you need me."

Simmons didn't reply but she managed to remain silent until Skye was gone, waiting until the door shut and she was alone once more to lose herself again. She hid her face in her knees but it didn't stop her from weeping, it didn't stop her from imagining the faces of the people whose lives she'd allowed to end.

o-o-o

A long while later, when her body was had stilled and the tears on her cheeks had cooled, the door opened. Hesitantly, someone padded over to the stall, stopping just outside and sitting down in front of it.

They didn't speak, but she recognized the shoes and the hand visible through the gap under the door.

"I helped them make it," she told him so low she wasn't sure if he could hear. "I made the toxin airborne."

She paused, waiting desperately for him to reply.

"I know," he murmured after a few seconds.

Fresh tears dripped down her face and her breath hitched. "I-it was my f-fault."

"No," he soothed. "No you couldn't... you didn't have... you had to."

She shook her head violently even though he couldn't see her. "No, no I could have... I could have sabotaged it... I could have said no."

"That... you...um... you can't..." he was struggling more than he usually would, to find the words, and she knew that was her fault too. It was her fault because her very presence harmed him, it was her fault because she was the reason he'd sacrificed himself, she was the one who hadn't swum fast enough. "Jemma you... you're good," he finally managed. "You're good Jemma."

Simmons swallowed. She didn't feel good, she felt rotten, infectious, like something that oozed out toxins, but his words were comforting and she tried to believe them.

His hand slid under the door and, after only a brief hesitation, she took it. His grip wasn't the same as she remembered it but his fingers had kept their shape and even if he was different now, even if the world inside of him had evolved without her, he was still Fitz.

They still shared a past and a love that had blossomed out of years of standing side by side. There were years of smiles and laughter and shared heartache behind them and that meant something even if it did nothing to prepare them to interact with the new people they'd become.

She wanted so badly to get to know him again, for this new grip to become familiar, but, at least until she found a way go back to him without being kryptonite, this brief moment was all she would allow.

"You're good," he soothed once again, his thumb drawing gentle circles on the back of her hand.

She sniffed. "OK."

Fitz kept hold of her hand, murmuring kind words of encouragement every now and again, but mostly remaining silent, until she felt strong enough to let go.

When she emerged and his eyes fell on her face they filled with concern, however he didn't comment.

She smiled weakly at him. "Thank you."

He nodded at her, the words still out of his grasp.

"I have to go now," she told him miserably.

Another nod. "I know."

He didn't though. He didn't know how much she didn't want to, had no idea how much she loved him, how badly it was hurting her to keep the distance between them.

And she couldn't explain it, he wouldn't understand.

She reached up to cup the side of his face, it too felt different but that didn't matter, what she held was still the face of her Fitz, and he leaned into her, eyes bright.

"It's not your fault," she asserted.

His lip quivered. "OK."

"It isn't," she pressed, stroking the skin under his eye. "I promise, it isn't."

He nodded, slowly, against her palm, and she managed another weak smile.

"You're good too Fitz."

o-o-o

That night, she found a paper on the floor of her room, right next to the door as if it had been pushed under through the crack at the bottom.

It was folded in two and she opened it, finding a short note written shakily on the inside.

'You didn't do this. You're good, you save people. I'm glad to be one of those people.'

She read the words over and over, holding the paper away from her so her tears wouldn't stain it. Then she carefully folded it back along the crease and tucked it under her pillow.

After she'd wormed her way into bed and shut the light, she slid her hand beneath the pillow to touch the paper. Not paper, it was more than paper, it was hope and light and the thing that was going to keep away her nightmares.

She didn't need to read it again, the words were burned into her, their image easily recalled.

'You're good, you save people.'

'I'm glad to be one of those people.'

o-o-o

_"You've been looking out for me, so I'm just returning the favour."_

-Secret Softie Peter Bishop, Fringe 1x06, The Cure

/-/-/

* * *

><p>The Fringe reference is he exploding papaya. Walter uses a chamber much like the one described in this story to show what happened to the victems of a case they are working on. (Haha, I have no idea what Fitz is using the machine for.) The quote at the beginning of the chapter is actually from that scene (except Walter says it altogether, without any breaks).<p>

The second quote is near the end of the episode, when Olivia is telling Peter he didn't need to stick his neck out for her (he made a shady deal with someone to help her solve the case) and he replies with that.

The Reason Astrid has a million different names at the beginning is because Walter can never remember her name (which is funny because he remembers to call Alternate Astrid Astrid when she comes to visit.) It's kind of a running joke on the show.

The whole holding hands under the door was inspired by a scene in the show _Skins _between the characters Emily and Naomi. I don't remember why, but for some reason they end up holding hands through a dog door and it is kinda sad.


	7. 2x07 So What Now? We Set a Trap

"_So what now?"_

"_We set a trap."_

-Let's-make-a-plan Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham, Fringe 2x07 _Of Human Action_

o-o-o

"All I'm saying is, if we start acting like the bad guys, we're going to become the bad guys," Mack told him, shooting down an enemy in his game while Fitz sat on the chair beside him, hugging a pillow to his chest and searching for a way to express that he was uncomfortable with the conversation without offending him. "We can't just put people into torture devices because we're polite about it."

"Simmons and Skye were only doing what they'd been told," Fitz objected loyally. "We needed answers."

They weren't being reckless, not the way he was making it sound. They hadn't said 'Please step into this machine, but if you do you may die a horrible and gruesome death. Thank you for your attention, and have a nice day.' It had been far more complicated than that.

A tank ran over Mack's avatar, flattening it and blasting virtual guts across the ground. He paused his game and turned to face his friend. "Sorry," he apologized. "I know you were tight with them at one time- especially Simmons, and I'm not calling them bad people, I just think it was bad decision to go ahead with it without trying to find another way first. I didn't mean to push any buttons."

"You did push a button, the one on your controller," Fitz joked, straight faced, in attempt to lighten the mood and change the subject. The words 'at one time' stung in their sincerity, made his heart ache.

Mack chuckled. "You want to play?"

He shook his head. "I don't like this one, the… it's hard because of the…"

"Violence? The aiming system? The way your stats are displayed? The lighting? The way the camera moves?" he suggested.

"Go back one," Fitz answered, motioning with his hands.

"The lighting?"

He nodded. "Yeah, the… the lighting." He adjusted his position, sinking into his seat. "Finish the level first, so you can save."

Mack smiled. "OK."

o-o-o

_...the only thing that makes him worse... is you.._

The words reverberated chaotically around Simmons' head as she stalked across the lab and dropped the rack of test tubes onto the counter beside the sink filled with soapy water, jostling them so that they clinged together loudly.

She hadn't needed anyone to _tell _her that, she knew, of course she knew. She knew it so well it was breaking her.

"You have a surprising amount of rage for someone so small agent Simmons," Trip commented calmly, raising an eyebrow.

He'd followed her into the lab to hear the details of what had happened with Coulson while he and May were away. Now that she was done he lingered, leaning against the wall beside her and looking concerned.

"Why would you say that?" she questioned rigidly, forcefully dunking another test tube into the water beneath the bubbles before agitatedly scrubbing it clean with the small brush, pushing it roughly against the glass as if she were trying to grind that away too.

"I guess I'm just good a reading people," he answered flatly, crossing his arms while he continued to watch her. "It makes sense that you would," he continued, gentle now. "Everything that's happened recently must seem pretty unfair. You haven't really been dealt the best hand of cards to play with."

"I don't think I'm the one you need to be most concerned about," she objected quietly. She placed the test tube on the drying rack and reached for another, slipping it under the bubbles with far less force this time.

As the glass submerged an awful, sickening feeling came over her. It didn't make any sense, but suddenly it felt horribly wrong, holding the the tube under the water. It didn't have lungs but she felt as if she were drowning it and, stifling a squeak of distress, she quickly pulled it out and placed it back with the dirty ones.

"I- I can finish this later," she decided, avoiding eye contact with her friend and moving away from the dishes. "I have work to do anyway."

"You could also take a break," Trip offered easily, as if it were a school night and he was trying to convince her to take some time away from her homework. "I have a pretty sweet game I can show you, if you want."

She almost refused, almost told him she'd rather be working, but she remembered what had happened with the test tube and decided she probably wouldn't be very productive anyway.

At last she allowed herself to look at him, forcing a smile. "I like games," she told him. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

o-o-o

"A video game?" she asked, hovering over the seat beside him in one of the sitting rooms and casting the controller he held out a weary glance. "I'm not… well I've certainly played before… but I thought… I thought you meant a board game or…"

"Ah,C'mon Simmons, it's fun," he insisted, smiling encouragingly as he waggled the controller in front of her. "You can even play against other people using the wifi, they're a lot better at it than the computer is."

"Maybe I should start by playing against the computer then," she decided, finally taking it from him and settling into the seat. "Or you, though I can't promise I'll be much of a challenge, I've never played this one before."

He chuckled. "Just relax, we're here to have fun. Hide and Explode is easy. Blow a few things up, you'll like it."

She smiled at him. "Well, I did always enjoy that part of chemistry," she admitted, beginning to customize her character, preparing to play.

o-o-o

"I think they've got you cornered," Mack chuckled, watching as Fitz's avatar hid behind a pillar

"Or do I have them right… uh… right where I want them?" he asked cryptically, focused on the screen.

"Do you?" he wondered, surprised.

"No," Fitz admitted. "But I could have."

Mack laughed. "So it's game over then?"

Gunfire erupted in the game and Fitz's avatar was knocked back several feet, virtual blood splattering across the imaginary camera.

"I guess so," he answered, passing back the controller.

"Hey, don't feel bad," Mack assured him. "It's a lot harder to play against real people than it is to play against a computer." He passed it back to Fitz. "Why don't we try a different game? I like Hide and Explode, you get to blow things up whenever you want."

Fitz grinned. "I did always like that part of… um… that part of the chemistry I had to to take at the Academy. It was my favourite part actually, aside from Simmons," he added, smiling fondly at the memory of her excited little face as she as she raced to stand beside him behind the explosive proof glass, eager to watch the fantastically wild reaction.

Then he blushed, his body becoming rigid and awkward as he realized what he'd said, but, to his relief, Mack didn't comment.

Instead he rose to replace the game. "I think you're going to like this one."

o-o-o

"Ready to challenge a real person?" Trip grinned as Simmons defeated the computer for the third time in a row. "You're pretty good at this."

Simmons shrugged. "Fitz and I did much more at the Academy during our free time than eat paste, whatever Skye tells you," she answered.

Trip raised his eyebrows. "Why does Skye think…?" He shook his head. "You know what? Never mind, I probably don't want to know."

Simmons smiled but her heart felt heavy and she she toggled the joystick absently, expression falling to a frown as bittersweet memories of their Academy days surfaced. (None of which involved eating paste.)

"You miss him, don't you?" he commented kindly.

She kept her eyes on her controller as she spoke. "He hasn't gone anywhere."

"He didn't have to," he answered. "I saw the way you two were before, he was your wingman, and you were his."

"I guess he found a new one," she mumbled unhappily. "I just hope he isn't affected too much by the bad influence."

Trip chuckled and at last she gazed up at him, pressing her lips together and trying not to feel offended because she hadn't meant to be funny.

"You know, I think Fitz was jealous of _me _in the beginning," he mused.

Her cheeks burned. "I don't know what you're implying, but I can assure you that I'm not being petty. I'm _happy_ he has a new friend, _thrilled _he's getting along with people."

"I never said petty," Trip objected calmly. "And I don't think Mack's what you're really angry about either. You've been dealt a pretty bad hand," he repeated.

"I think we all have," she pointed out fairly.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I won't argue with that." He shrugged. "Wanna blow things up again?"

She nodded and turned back to the screen. "Yes please."

o-o-o

"Hey I have a challenger," Fitz remarked, pointing needlessly at the screen where both Mack and himself were already looking.

"That's Trip," Mack told him jovially. "I recognize his user name. Never seen him use that avatar before though."

Fitz smiled confidently. "It doesn't look that… uh… that intimidating. You think I can beat him this time?"

Mack shrugged. "Go ahead Turbo." He grinned, amused. "Let's see if you can get him right where you want him."

o-o-o

"You certainly know a lot of people who play this game," Simmons commented, going through Trip's list of contacts.

Trip shrugged. "I've been playing for a while. Is anyone online?"

"Turbo245 is," she told him, scrolling over the name so that their information was displayed on the right hand side of the screen.

Trip was silent.

She twisted in her seat so that she was facing him. "Can I challenge them?" she inquired.

He hesitated. Then he smiled, seemingly amused by something. "Yeah, why not?"

"I can message them that it's someone else playing, if you're worried about your reputation," she teased.

He chuckled. "Nah, it's fine. I'm sure he'll figure it out."

o-o-o

"He's walking right into my trap," Fitz commented, narrowing his eyes suspiciously because he was about to win with very minimal effort and he _never_ won against Trip.

"Maybe he let someone else play," Mack suggested. "He seems to like Skye, maybe that's her avatar."

"Trip doesn't _like _Skye," Fitz protested, continuing to lead whoever it was deep and deeper into the abandoned factory. "They're just friends."

"I didn't mean _like _as in he had a crush," Mack clarified before biting off a piece of his twizzler. "Just that they seem like they get along."

"Oh." Fitz turned another corner. "I like Skye too," he told him quietly. "And Simmons, they're my friends." Mack was silent so he risked glancing away from his game for a moment to face him, smiling. "And you're my friend too… er… right?"

"Why do you think I'm here watching you let yourself be led into a trap?" he teased.

"What?!" Fitz exclaimed, whipping around to face the screen.

He'd walked right into a ring of motion sensitive bombs and his avatar had been blown into several pieces, anatomically incorrect bones and organs spread across the factory floor.

"That's definitely not Trip," Mack laughed.

A message appeared on the bottom of the screen. 'Again?'

Fitz frowned, picturing the smug expression on the face of whoever it was, overconfident after they'd caught him off guard.

They weren't fooling him twice.

'Let's play.' he wrote.

o-o-o

Simmons and Trip were laughing together as they took in the carnage.

"It's not really anatomically correct," Simmons commented between giggles. "I hope whoever it is isn't too upset about being fooled."

"He did agree to a rematch," Trip pointed out. "He probably wants revenge."

Simmons smirked at the message written on the bottom of her screen.

'I hope you're more of a challenge now that you've warmed up,' she thought, feeling just a little smug.

o-o-o

They'd been playing for over an hour, enjoying the challenge of trying to outdo the other, taking turns exploding one another's avatars into messy confetti. On Fitz's end, Mack was beginning to nod off and on Simmons' end Trip had left to prepare himself a snack, chuckling to himself about the playful insults she'd started throwing at the screen (and the fact that she was unwittingly having fun with her best friend).

He didn't know it, but both Fitz and Simmons had begun to suspect that they were playing against someone familiar. Each trap they led each other into drove further and further into their minds the idea that, just maybe, they were playing against each other.

After a particularly Simmons-like trap, Fitz was sufficiently convinced it could be Simmons that he decided to lay a different kind of trap, one which she'd be happy (he hoped) to spring.

Laboriously, because using the controller to create a message was difficult, Fitz put together a short one and sent it to her.

'You're Good. - Nb'

He sat back in his seat, chewing on his lip as he waited for a response. It took a while, neither player moving, but at last a message appeared.

'You too, it's been fun. - Ta'

Fitz grinned widely, even as his eyes burned and he blinked back tears. Nb and Ta, Niobium and Tantalum. They were two elements, so often found together and so hard to separate that, at one time, they'd been believed to be the same. They'd been nicknames, given to them by one of their professors at the Academy because, even then, they'd been inseparable.

Now he was certain it was her.

Another message appeared at the bottom of the screen. 'gtg, really, it's work.'

Fitz's phone buzzed as he received a text from Coulson, calling him down to the lab.

He hesitated before continuing. 'How are you?'

Another long pause from her end.

'OK, you?'

Fitz wasn't sure how to answer his own question, or what to think of what Simmons had written. 'OK'? She was 'OK'? Clearly it meant she wasn't doing poorly but did it also mean she wasn't doing well? Was OK somewhere in the middle? Should he be concerned?

He wasn't sure what to answer and so, instead, he asked another question, sending it quickly before he had a chance to give in to his fear and fidgeting anxiously as he waited for her return message.

'Friends?'

This time, he didn't have long to wait.

'Always.'

He smiled again, hastily wiping away the tears that overflowed out of his eyes in case Mack woke up and wondered why his cheeks were dripping with them.

'Me too,' he sent before another text forced him to shut off the game and wake up his sleeping friend.

He didn't know it, but in another room of the Playground, alone without really being alone, tears were running down Simmons' cheeks too as she smiled at his final message.

She missed him, so much, but he was alright and he was happy and he was still her friend. It hurt, where he'd once been, the empty space beside her aching like a phantom limb, but she had hope that someday they'd be together again.

They loved each other, whatever happened and whatever changed them, and maybe, if they were lucky, someday that would be enough.

o-o-o

"_..if you do, you may die a horrible and gruesome death. Thank you for your attention, and have a nice day." _

- Inappropriately polite Walter Bishop, Fringe 2x07 _Of Human Action_

/-/-/

* * *

><p>A gigantic thanks to notapepper for helping me with this. The idea of Simmons being Fitz's favourite part of chemistry class at the Academy came from her super-Fitzsimmons-fan mind. (And what a cute idea it is).<p>

There is actually no Fringe reference in this chapter (except for the quotes) _but_ bonus points if you know who said the first quote haha I am about 90% sure it was Peter and then Olivia but I didn't write it down in my notes. *Fails at note taking* *Must repeat the course*

Both quotes are from the episode _Of Human Action_ about criminals with the power of mind-control. The first one is (I am assuming Olivia and Peter) talking about setting a trap for the criminals and the second one is Walter explaining to the FBI agents who are part of that trap that they need to keep their protective headphones on or they will... well die a horrible and gruesome death.

The game Hide and Explode is a reference to Avatar the Last Airbender. It is a game kids in the Fire Nation play, I guess like hide and seek except they explode each other (just a bit of course, enough to be fun but not so much that people go home crying and singed).


	8. 2x08 Early in the Season

"_Don't you think it's a little early in the season for the yuletide cheer?" _

Peter what-the-heck-are-you-doing-dad? Bishop

o-o-o

Simmons was certain that he couldn't see her, hidden just around the corner of a stack of large crates, watching him as he helped load the equipment onto the Bus. His movements were steady, though he looked nervous. As nervous as she was.

He was ready, she _knew_ he was ready because he worked hard and he never gave up, because he was Fitz and, whatever anyone thought, she knew he wasn't useless. He was still one of the best agents they had, with more heart and more nerve than anyone she'd ever met.

That didn't mean he was guaranteed to come back though.

"Hey there Miss Carter," someone chuckled behind her, almost causing her to jump out of her skin. "Practicing your super spy skills?"

"Trip don't do that," she scolded, cursing his stealthy footsteps that had almost made her give herself away with a loud, unflattering squeak she'd barely managed to suppress.

"Why don't you go say goodbye?" he wondered calmly, ducking behind the crates and lowering his voice, smiling as if he'd caught her in the middle of a game of hide and seek.

After another longing glance at Fitz, who seemed to emanate an alluring, invisible glow that highlighted his every movement, she sighed and stared miserably down at the floor. "I wouldn't know what to say," she mumbled.

"How about goodbye?" he suggested flatly, causing her to lift her head so she could roll her eyes at him.

"And then what?" she demanded, harsher than she'd intended. He raised his eyebrows and she pressed her lips together unhappily, shoulders sagging. "Sorry, that was uncalled for."

He studied her face for a moment, narrowing his eyes as if he were deep in thought, debating something. Then he shrugged, smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small pin, a Christmas tree, with red and green lights. It must have been broken though, because only the green lights were flashing.

"I guess it can't really do any harm to give you this," he told her, holding it out until she took it, cold and strangely heavy in her hand.

"Don't you think it's a little early in the season for the yuletide cheer?" she commented amusedly, because frowns were hard to hold onto around the easygoing agent, though she suspected it was more than just a Christmas pin.

"It's from my Granddad's stash," he informed her, fishing around in his pocket before pulling out another pin, a golden star on a candy cane striped circle. "If the top of the star points to a green stripe," he explained. "The lights flash green, that means we're OK."

Simmons looked down at the pin, gripping it a little tighter as it dawned on her what it was.

He grew solemn, turning the star slowly so that it clicked into a new position and the lights changed. "When the top of the star points to a white stripe, the lights flash green, green, red. That means one of us has been killed."

It was as if someone had hit her in the throat, crushing her windpipe, and she nodded, unable to speak. Thinking about it herself was one thing but hearing someone say it out loud, that there was a possibility that not everyone would return, made it real, made it hurt more.

"Hey," he called, touching her shoulder, his ever sunny cheer swiftly returning. "Don't look like that, we'll be fine. I just wanted you to have something green to stare at, so you know your favourite secret agents are safe."

She smiled at that, a bit of the weight lifting off of her. "So you're my favourites now?" she teased lightly. He made a face that said 'who are you kidding?' and she actually laughed. "Yeah, you're right. Our team are my favourites." And more than half of them were charging out into danger in less than an hour. Her fear returned at the thought, like the chill of cold water, and she jerked her head in the direction of his pin, her smile disappearing. "What happens if the top of the star points to a red stripe," she asked dully.

"Only the red lights will flash," he replied, serious again.

She was frightened of the answer, but she asked the question anyway, voice small. "And… and what does that mean?" What could be worse than one of them being killed?

His gaze met hers, strong but gentle. "That means it's Fitz."

Simmons nodded again to show she understood, eyes burning with tears she had to work hard to blink away. She could lose him, forever this time, and there'd be no way for her to stop it.

'_The only lights flashing will be the green ones,' _she told herself firmly, but she couldn't quite believe it.

"Why is he different?" she inquired, fighting to keep her voice even.

A knowing grin spread across Trips face and she shook his head, chuckling at her. "You tell me agent Simmons," he mused.

"How do you… I mean what?…," she fumbled before she regained her composure. "I don't know what you're talking about. I wouldn't want anything to happen to _any _of you."

"Yeah, I know," he agreed easily. "But Fitz is different, even if you don't know why."

She looked back towards the Bus, at her best friend, the man she'd pulled up from the bottom of the ocean because, whatever happened afterwards, she couldn't bring herself to let him go, and the tightness in her chest told her Trip was right, or at least, partially right.

"I do," she told him quietly. "I know why." She turned back to Trip, pleading now. "Bring him back."

He nodded, determined. "I always intended to."

They smiled warmly at each other before something snapped and she leapt forward, pulling him into a quick, tight hug. "You'd all better come back," she ordered, as she released him. "I'm going to be very angry if those lights flash anything but green."

His expression changed, confidence wavering for moment before it returned and he grinned again. "It's going to be fine," he promised.

o-o-o

Something had gone wrong. No one was suppose to be shooting at them, not yet. He wasn't suppose to be bleeding, his arm ripped open by an enemy's bullet.

At least his team was alright. That's what they were now, they were _his _team and he hadn't needed to make any promises to Simmons, he was going to protect them no matter what happened.

He had protected them, they were alright.

Now though, it was their turn to protect him. Fitz was putting together wires and circuits, finishing the mission, while Coulson kneeled beside him, there to make sure he got through. He hadn't known, when he'd first met the now Director of SHIELD, how much he would come to trust him.

It hurt. It didn't matter that he'd been shot before, or that he was an experienced agent or that people thought he was tough, a bullet wound hurt.

And he was fading, struggling to remain conscious, to hear what they were saying because it was important. It was about Skye.

He couldn't stay awake. He was fading and there was so much blood that he worried once the darkness took him it wouldn't give him back.

His hand inched towards his pocket, feeling the pin, and for a brief moment he wondered if he should turn the star, a single click, so that it pointed to the white stripe, but he quickly decided against it.

"_I'm going to be very angry if those lights flash anything but green."_

He didn't need to upset her, he wasn't going to die. Coulson and Fitz weren't going to let that happen, so he left it and and fought to stay awake, to hear what the man who claimed he was Skye's father was saying, until he couldn't anymore and the darkness took him.

For the moment anyway, it didn't get to keep him this time.

o-o-o

Fitz sat on a hard, plastic chair, beside Trip who lay in a cot, wound dressed and his legs covered in a blanket.

"Do you need anything?" he asked, not for the first time, when a sudden movement caused his injured friend to wince, hand moving towards his shoulder.

"I'm fine," he assured him.

Fitz nodded. "Yeah, of course."

He wasn't so sure though. How did they really know he was fine? How did they know that the man who'd put his life in danger in order to get away hadn't slipped anything into the clotting agents? How did they know he hadn't slipped anything inside of Trip when he'd been working on him? Trip could have some horrible, invisible alien worm gnawing away at him from the inside out and how would they _know_?

"Has Coulson spoken with Skye yet?" Trip wondered, readjusting himself so that he was sitting up.

Fitz shook his head, expression darkening as he was reminded of yet another worry on his growing list. "I don't know."

"How do you think she'll take it?" he asked.

"I'd be bloody terrified," Fitz answered. "Having some psychotic murderer coming after me."

"I mean about finding out about her family," Trip clarified.

"_We're_ her family," he objected, surprising himself with how protective he suddenly felt. "He's..." he gestured wildly, searching for the words. "He's insane, and he's dangerous. We can't just hand her over because he _says _he's her father."

"I'm not arguing," Trip told him calmly. "The man was going to let me bleed out, I don't trust him any more than you do." He paused. "But if he is her father, she's going to want to know more."

"Hopefully from a safe distance," Fitz muttered. "I'm not ready to lose anyone else just yet."

Trip's eyes narrowed as he carefully studied Fitz's expression, thinking something through. "You didn't lose her," he asserted after a moment.

It was as if he'd seen right through him. "Lose who?" Fitz asked, feigning like he didn't know what Trip was talking about.

The other agent shook his head, smiling and not falling for his ruse even a little. "Simmons."

Fitz didn't answer, preoccupying himself with the medical equipment, checking it over as if he were worried it had been set up incorrectly. "Are you sure the IV is in properly?" he inquired, standing to examine it.

Trip sighed and reached into his pocket, removing a small, round object. "Do you know what this is?"

Fitz returned to his chair and leaned forward for a closer look before he raised his eyebrows, confused. "Don't you think it's a little early in the season for Christmas?" he remarked jokingly.

"It's one of my Granddad's gadgets," Trip explained, holding it out to him. "Don't turn the star," he added.

Fitz turned the pin over in his hand, strangely heavy, puzzling it out. "Is it some sort of communications device?" he wondered, curious now. "Why can't I turn the star?"

"Because if you do, Simmons is going to think one of us is dead," Trip told him.

His head whipped up. "It's signalling to… to Simmons?" he fumbled, fluttering wings stirring aggravatingly beneath his heart. So much for moving on. "W-... why?"

"She was worried," Trip answered simply. "So I gave her something to make her feel better, to tell her we were alright. If the tip of the star points to the green, we're fine, if it points to white, one of us has died." He paused and Fitz wondered if he'd debated turning it earlier, when he'd been injured. "If the star points to the red stripe, it means it's you."

His brow furrowed and he stared down at candy cane pattern. That didn't make sense. "I don't understand. Why am I different?"

Trip shrugged. "You're special to her."

"No," Fitz shook his head sadly, chest tight. "Not anymore."

"You sure about that?" Trip questioned.

Was he? After everything that happened, was it possible that he was still her partner, her best friend?

"I don't know," he mumbled.

His friend smiled gently. "I know one way you can find out. Talk to her, she wants to work things out just as much as you do."

Fitz sighed and handed the pin back to him. "You make it sound so simple."

Trip chuckled as he tucked it back into his pocket. "No one ever said love was simple."

o-o-o

Simmons had never needed a night light. Even as a young child, the darkness had never frightened her, and even now it wasn't so much the light that she needed as the colour.

The pin sat on her bedside table, flashing an endless line of beautiful green, a night light that wasn't there to rid the room of darkness but to to rid her heart of the icy fear that kept trying to creep across it.

Fitz was alright, _everyone _was alright so long as it stayed green, so she allowed her eyes to close, lulled asleep by a blinking Christmas tree.

o-o-o

"_Walter Bishop claims he remembers Kim telling him a story about a woman who put him to sleep with a Christmas tree…"_

Strange Stories Walter Told Me, by Olivia Dunham

/-/-/

* * *

><p>The Fringe reference is the flashing lights, green, green, red, which were used by the woman Walter talks about to put Kim to sleep in 1x08 <em>They Equation, <em>the episode which both quotes are from. In the episode, the lights are used to hypnotize people so they can be manipulated into solving an equation that the badguys need to walk through walls.

Also thank you to tumblr for putting me in the Christmas spirit before December :P and to notapepper for helping me with my stories (and always pointing me in the direction of awesome fanfiction).

When Trip calls Simmons Miss Carter it is a reference to Peggy Carter (who Simmons was fangirling about in this episode ^_^). I loved this episode, between BAMF Fitz and adorable fangirl Simmons and all the Skye/Fitz/Trip bonding, it was awesome.


	9. 2x09 & 2x10 A Disturbing Sense of Humor

_"...it never ceases to amaze me the infinite variation that Mother Nature gives us. She truly has quite a disturbing sense of humor."_

"_Judging by your new pet, I think Mother Nature's a real bitch."_

Walter I-love-giant-hookworms Bishop and Astrid why-do-we-have-to-keep-this-thing Farnsworth, Fringe, 2x09 _Snakehead_

o-o-o

Simmons sat in the kitchen of the playground, nibbling on her toast and taking small sips of tea as she read through some of her and Fitz's older projects, searching for something useful.

"Is that an alien worm?" Trip asked, his concern showing on his face as he slowly sat down beside her, wincing a little as he pulled at his injury, and pointed towards a photograph on her tablet of a particularly large parasite erupting from the mouth of a dead sheep. Part of the animal's face had been raggedly ripped apart, the flesh torn as if the worm had burst it's way out. "Please tell me that's from space or Asgard or something."

"No, it's from Earth- mutated- but from Earth," she told him, smiling and shaking her head in wonder at the gorgeously complex creature. "It never ceases to amaze me, the infinite variation that nature gives us." She scrunched her nose as she flipped through the pictures of the parasite and its gruesome effects on the livestock. "It has quite a disturbing sense of humor," she mused. "Thankfully the creature never gained the ability to infect humans."

She paused when she reached an image of the animal swimming in a large glass and metal tank back in their old lab at Sci-Ops. She and Fitz stood on opposite ends of it, their expressions as contrasting as night and day. Hers was a wide, sunshine smile, as she peered in at the creature through the thick glass, bright eyed and eager to examine it, while his was one of undisguised disgust as he leaned away.

"Judging by your old pet, I'd say Mother Nature's a real bitch," Trip laughed, looking down at it over her shoulder.

She chuckled. "I think Fitz would agree with you on that one, he _hated _the parasite. I was actually going to name it after him, _Necator fitzalus, _but he was completely against it." She rolled her eyes as his exact words drifted back through the long stretch of time between then and when they'd been spoken, sounding in her head as if she'd only just heard them.

'_I'm not going to be remembered because of a bloody flesh eating parasite,' _he'd complained, glaring at it as it swam past. '_Especially THAT one!' _

Trip smirked. "You were going to name a parasitic worm after him? That's cute."

Simmons shrugged, though her cheeks warmed. "I already had a deadly virus named after _me_, I thought that was enough, and I wanted…," another shrug. "It just made sense that it'd be after him. He wa- he _is_ my best friend after all, my partner." She fought back a heavy sigh. How had something that had once been so familiar become so unbearably foreign? When had she _ever _had to wonder whether or not he was her best friend? "He even helped me get it into the tank, though of course he complained about it for hours afterwards," she mused, drawing on months of undercover experience (and the fact that Trip still didn't know just how well she could lie) to keep her feelings hidden.

"There's a deadly virus named after you?" he asked, grinning in amusement.

"_Variola jemmale_- it was made in a lab_,_" she informed him, smiling briefly before her eyes drifted back to the screen and the rush of memories the image brought made her chest tight and her heart sore.

It seemed almost cruel, having what she wanted most stored in her head, an extensive collection of the times they'd been together and happy so easily recalled as if to taunt her, when she couldn't have it then in the present. As fond as she was of them, and even if she'd never trade them for anything, the memories hurt to revisit.

The longing must have shown, this time, in her expression, because when Trip spoke next his voice was gently sympathetic.

"I bet you two have a whole library of giant worm stories," he guessed. Then he smiled and leaned back in his chair. "Do you have a favourite?"

She shook her head slowly, unable to tear her gaze from her old friend, the image of a time he'd been completely at ease at her side (even if he was a little put off by the parasite). "All of it," she answered quietly. She forced herself to look up at him and plastered on a smile. "Though, this one is rather exciting, for our days at Sci-ops anyway," she added with a chuckle. "It'd pale in comparison to our adventures on the Bus."

"What happened?" Trip wondered, chuckling with her. "Did your freaky friend get out of the tank to look for more sheep?"

She laughed. "No, it wouldn't have been mobile outside of the water, and it would have dried out. It was while we were transferring it." She stared ahead, seeing the event unfold in front of her. "It was squirming and thrashing about, and it was _so _strong, it took both of us to hold it and Fitz kept saying we should kill it even though I'd told him already that we needed it alive."

"Why would you need something like that alive?" Trip asked, raising an eyebrow, and she smiled because could tell right away that he was teasing her.

"It was thrashing and struggling," she continued, "and I'm not sure who, but one of us lost our grip and it managed to yank itself away and curl around my arm before it bit me."

"It _bit _you?" he questioned, wincing sympathetically. "Ouch, that must have hurt."

"It wasn't actually that bad," she told him dismissively. "It had anesthetic in its saliva, like leeches do." His expression was becoming increasingly similar to Fitz's in the photograph. "It didn't hurt, but I was a bit lethargic for a while. Fitz made more of a fuss than I did."

"I'll bet he did," Trip chuckled. "I've noticed he can be a bit..."

"Ridiculous?" she finished, shaking her head. "He wouldn't _stop _fussing about it, and it was a bit irritating but it was also… it was also very sweet," she admitted. Her smile turned sad and she went on wistfully. "He made me lie down after I'd sent off my blood to be tested, offered me anything I wanted, water, pillows, even some candy from his stash. And he took care of the parasite all by himself." she laughed softly, replaying the memory of him struggling with the large parasite and feeling a warm rush of affection. "Though he complained about it the entire time and he kept threatening to cook it into a stew if it ever bit anyone again."

"Yum, giant hookworm stew," Trip joked. "Just like grandma used to make."

Her mouth twitched but she stared ahead, heart aching. "He was always taking care of me."

"You always take care of each other," Trip corrected firmly.

She swallowed, feeling her eyes moisten. "Not anymore… I'm trying to but…" She threw her hands in the air, at a loss. "I'm trying."

"And I think you're doing a pretty good job," he insisted. "You might not be a field agent, but you certainly have a knack for protecting people, especially Fitz. Everyone knows that."

His praise felt good and she smiled fondly at him before the brief warmth it had given her was eaten up by the chill of her sorrow and she shook her head sadly. "He doesn't."

"Well he'll figure it out," Trip pressed stubbornly. "You gotta give the guy some time to catch onto things sometimes. I mean, it took him a while to see how loveable _I _am. I was getting a little worried for a bit, but he caught on. I think once you're honest with him, he'll understand."

She shot him a grateful smile. "How are you always so positive?"

"My mom used to tell me I was made from sunshine," he kidded. "But I think she was just finding ways to avoid the talk about the birds and the bees. Don't lose hope OK?" he urged kindly. "You two'll figure things out eventually, and in the meantime you can tell me all the nasty bug, worm and slime stories you want."

She was sure she would have hugged him if she hadn't been concerned about his injury. "Thank you Trip."

He smiled. "Any time Jemma."

o-o-o

"Careful with that," Fitz warned quickly as Trip attempted to lift a small crate off of the equipment he was helping Fitz load into the vehicles. Simmons had skittered off briefly for a last minute meeting with Coulson, leaving the two of them to continue on their own. "That's Jemma's collection of pickled monsters."

"Ahh," Trip grimaced, placing it back down. "Why do we have this?"

"Many of them have potentially useful toxins or other….uh… other compounds left inside of them," he explained, waiting for Trip to scoop up the equipment then beginning to walk towards the truck side by side with him. "She thought they might be useful later, you know, if we ever wanted to use them in a new gadget."

"Are the ICER's rounds filled with worm juice?" Trip asked, frowning at the thought.

Fitz chuckled. "Nah, that was all Jemma," he told him proudly. "Though she might have based the dendrotoxin on a few of those." He paused. "What made you say worm?"

Trip shrugged, jostling the armful of gas torches he held as he did so that they clanged together. "We were talking about your old pet earlier, when we were going through some of your work."

"I wouldn't call it a pet," he corrected, making a face as he remembered the horribly disgusting creature. He was surprised she'd brought it up, it had been a long time ago, another lifetime it seemed. "Did you know she saved me from getting bitten by it?" he inquired as they stepped off the plane onto the dusty ground. "Bloody thing wanted to take a chunk out of me, but she pulled it away before it could and it ended up sinking those terrifying teeth into her poor arm instead."

His friend raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "She told me it bit her."

"Well she would have," he let him know, mouth tugging up in a warm smile while he fumbled to open the door with his hands full. "She's a real guardian angel that one, she just doesn't see it." He blushed, realizing what he'd said as Trip grinned knowingly at him, and pulled the door open to hide himself behind it. "Er… I mean… well you've known her long enough, I'm sure you've noticed," he defended hastily, ears burning. "And stop looking at me like that, I know that you…. that you know… that _everyone _knows and it's embarrassing enough as it is."

He busied himself stacking the boxes into the truck, tossing them down with just a little more force than was necessary so that they clapped loudly against the bottom of the trunk. Trip wove his way around to place the torches behind them.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," he assured him breezily. "You haven't done anything except what just about every other person in the world eventually does. And…" he hesitated, stepping back as Fitz slammed the door shut and turned to face him, eyes downcast and rubbing his arm uneasily "And what you did when… you know… down there… it was incredibly brave." His words were filled with warm admiration.

"I wasn't trying to be brave," he told him honestly. "I did it because I was afraid… I…" he searched for a way to explain what he'd been thinking, the _certainty _he'd had, still had, that she needed to be the one to live. He sighed and his shoulders rose and fell in a long shrug. "I guess dying just wasn't as scary as the idea of a world without her," he finally decided on.

Fitz felt the other agent's eyes on him and shifted uncomfortably as he waited for his response.

"You know, it's when people say stuff like that that I believe the good in this world is stronger than the bad," he answered seriously.

Fitz looked up, surprised and feeling a rush of warmth towards his friend. He meant it, he could tell that he meant it, and it made him proud to think that the other man, who was practically Superman himself, thought so much of him.

"You know, having friends like you makes me believe the same thing," he replied quietly, meeting his gaze before flushing again because it was strange, to be so open with his emotions.

He trusted Trip though, and he wanted to be honest with him about how he felt about their friendship, especially since he'd started out being such an arse to him.

Trip chuckled, wearing a familiar wide, sunny grin, and held out his fist, hovering it in the space between them.

Fitz covered it with his hand as they grinned at each other.

o-o-o

"No!" Simmons screeched, reaching for the cable with no clear plan as the world shook violently, crumbling and raining down dust and debris around them.

Another rough tremor almost knocked her down the deep hole and Fitz darted forward to pull her away, holding onto her tightly as his heart hammered against the inside of his chest because that had been far too close.

"We have to do something," she whimpered, fighting for moment before she realized there was nothing _to do _and let herself collapse partially against him, hands still held up uselessly as she stared down into the darkness that had swallowed up their friend.

"He'll be OK," Fitz assured her, however she could tell he didn't believe what he was saying and he followed her gaze with bright eyes. "He-... he has to be…" The pained desperation in his voice made her sick and she leaned further into him, seeking comfort as they waited for the quakes to subside.

"He'll be OK," she repeated squeakily, flinching as the rock shook again and heavy debris fell startlingly close to them, causing Fitz to instinctively pull her towards him so he could shelter her with his body. He couldn't protect Trip, but there was no way he was going to let Simmons be hurt or worse.

They huddled together, trembling almost as much as the cave, as they waited it out and when it finally stopped, she turned towards him, placing a hand on his chest so she could feel his quick, frightened breaths against it.

"What are we going to do?" she whispered, stronger now because she'd had time to recover from the initial shock and because, whatever was happening between them, the fact that they were still alive and together fed her courage.

"I don't know," he replied fearfully. "We're all on our own, I don't… I don't know."

She shook her head, frowning in disagreement as she pulled back. "No," she told him firmly, staring at him until their eyes met. "We're not alone. We're together and we're going to fix this."

Fitz hadn't been expecting her to say something like that and he wasn't sure, right away, how to reply but she continued meet his gaze, tear filled eyes shining with the same fierce determination he'd admired for so long, and, after a short pause, his mouth curved up in a small, brave smile.

"Yeah, you're right," he agreed, a flame lighting in his chest. "We're going to fix this."

o-o-o

"_I know you think you're alone in this…. But this isn't just your fight."_

Peter much-more-loyal-than-you-initially-thought Bishop, Fringe 2x10 _Grey Matters_

_o-o-o_

* * *

><p>This one was for both 2x09 and 2x10 because the episodes were of a single story (a two-parter), so I decided to fuse them into one chapter.<p>

Thank you notapepper for helping me out :D, you're a wonderful beta. And I am sending you some chocolate from my giant bag.

The Fringe reference is the parasitic worm biting Simmons. In the 2x09 _Snakehead _Walter is bitten by the giant hookworm while examining it. In his case it makes him super 'healthy' and (as he told Astrid) even gets rid of the gas he had.

Fun fact Necator is the genus hookworms are in and Variola is the 'genus' the smallpox virus is in.


End file.
